Over the years having worked in consulting and research I have been sent countless portfolios for opinion. Virtually all portfolios have followed a pre-defined asset allocation aligned to a specific risk profile but occasionally that is where the alignment ends. This is because the investments selected bear little to no relationship with their desired characteristics …

Following are my recent thoughts around markets with many charts to support these views. These views are far from complete but do represent a reasonable summary at this point in time. Income Assets Source: RBA, Delta Research & Advisory The above left chart suggests the market believes the cash rate is heading towards 1.5% …

Source: RBA I know this probably an overly simplistic way of looking at investment grade credit markets…but…the above chart is currently showing that US investment Grade credit spreads have declined to be in the ballpark of pre-GFC levels. Personally, the US economy is still relatively weak, albeit getting stronger, but I no longer believe this …

Source: Mornngstar Direct, Delta Research & Advisory The above chart shows distributions of excess monthly returns over the UBS Bank Bill index from July 2000 to November 2012 for four different indexes that more or less represent the different strategies a bond portfolio can accept… Citi AusBiig 1-3 Yr index … representing short duration Citi …

Source: RBA, Delta Research & Advisory Bizaarely as it seems but the above chart shows that over the last month the Australian Government Bond Yield curve has barely budged. There’s really no more than 5 to 10 bps difference across all terms and when you consider the various big announcements, economic results from here, overseas …

I was quite excited to see the launch of the new Russell Select Australian Corporate Bond fund over the past few days. I thought the ability to have a diversified Australian bond fund that has the ability to provide a bit of credit risk for a more diversified portfolio would be great. Unfortunately when I …